


windward side / leeward side

by antistar_e (kaikamahine)



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-30 22:19:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaikamahine/pseuds/antistar_e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you went by his Facebook page, Arthur's biggest accomplishment to date seemed to be taking on the entire KEO frat house at beer pong and emerging the champion. [Hawaiian!AU].</p>
            </blockquote>





	windward side / leeward side

**Author's Note:**

> Done for robin_2370_hood, who prompted me with "a penguin, a naked man, and jimmy johns". This is a shamelessly self-indulgent modern!AU, set in Hawaii, in which Gwen owns a surf shop and Merlin is a nerd for volcanos. Homesickness: 1. Coherency: 0.
> 
> Also available [@ LJ](http://antistar-e.livejournal.com/446827.html?format=light).

-

 

So everyone has to have a "I so got lost on my first day of school, only in this retelling, I act a lot cooler than I actually did, because in real life I was totally panicking and wondering where the hell I was and kind of wanting to stop and cry and maybe go home" story, and Merlin's was this:

The POST building was kind of the worst building on campus, because once he found the door (for being University of Hawaii's pride and joy of an oceanography and earth sciences building, you'd think they'd mark the front entrance a little better) he had seven flights of stairs to climb to get to his classroom, which turned out to be this crap-ass lecture room with no windows and seats that were way too close and personal to each other.

Running late, still not adjusted to the tropical humidity, and having just climbed _seven freaking flights of stairs,_ Merlin was a little sweaty and out of breath and didn't even have the option of snagging an open seat away from other people. 

"Dude," said the guy at his elbow, in tank top and swim trunks and whose skin was to Merlin's as wheat bread was to white. "What's your problem?"

"I just. Climbed. The stairs," Merlin felt the need to point out, emphatic.

"Right," drawled the guy. He didn't seem to have any materials besides his sunglasses. "You do know there's an elevator, right?"

"Fdhuifrhkjsnclaps," said Merlin, or something close to it.

And that wasn't even the worst part, because, like, twenty minutes later, the professor was like, "Okay, now I want you guys to divide off into groups of three or four and work on answering this worksheet I'm going to give you. Don't worry about having all the correct answers; I just want to see where you are!" Which was seriously uncool, because what kind of teacher gives a _group_ worksheet on _the first day._

Long-suffering, Merlin sent a questioning look at surfer dude.

"Yeah, whatever, man," was the reply.

"We need two more people," Merlin pointed out, wondering if it was too late to second-guess his life's ambitions.

More than four brain cells seemed to come together to fire inter-office memos at each other about this, because he stopped and thought for a moment. Then, snatching Merlin's pen off his desk, leaned forward in between the seats in front of them to poke a girl in the back of the head. "Hey," he said. "You should work with us."

She turned around to glare at him. "I'm with her," she indicated the girl next to her.

"Right," said Surfer Dude™. "And we need four people. It's totally fine. Get up here."

Once they put their heads together, it wasn't so bad: it turned out that everyone in their group, excluding Merlin, had grown up on the island, and had some form of Geology 101 shoved down their throats before. Answering the worksheet at that point was relatively painless.

"Wait," said Merlin, as the girls were gathering up their bags and the surfer pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes. "I need your guys' names."

They told him.

"...." he said. And then, "You have _got_ to be kidding me."

 

 

Arthur and Morgana, it turned out, knew each other in that strange, incestuous way that rich, privileged kids do, and could tolerate each other, if by tolerate, you mean, almost but not quite manage to hold conversations with each other without finding the nearest vat of toxic waste, then, sure, they tolerated each other just fine. Their fathers had been in the Navy together, which in Hawaii was kind of like saying the ocean was wet: most white kids who grew up here had military parents.

Arthur, as far as Merlin could tell, had never done a useful thing in his life and mostly just spent his time riding around on his skateboard with his headphones in and getting himself invited to other people's parties. His day-to-day wardrobe only varied in that some days, his flip flops were brown, others black, and sometimes he even wore a Hollister shirt. With sleeves. But most of the time, it was a tank, Hawaiian Surf Co. -- the better to show off his shoulders, which were the kind of shoulders that mugged other unsuspecting shoulders in dark alleyways and stole their good looks.

If you went by his Facebook page, his biggest accomplishment to date seemed to be taking on the entire KEO frat house at beer pong and emerging the champion.

Which, Merlin had to admit, the first and only time he met the boys of the KEO house -- who were less people and more walking, talking .08 blood alcohol levels -- was a pretty impressive feat.

Morgana sat in class with her back unnervingly straight, which she swore was just leftover from years of indoctrination at Catholic all-girl's school. She wore clothes that had to come from the upper floors of Ala Moana, where only really rich people and Japanese tourists shop, and had a purse that looked like it cost more than Merlin's semester tuition. She looked Barbie-doll perfect every day, which was standard fair for island girls: when men talk to Morgana, most conversation was directed at her chest, because girls in Hawaii have a way of making their clothing seem like a suggestion at best.

(Which was one of the things Merlin had the hardest time adjusting to. Before, he'd only ever saw that much "OH HAI SKIN" at once on the NSFW pages he had bookmarked.)

Gwen, on the other hand, was actually kama'aina, complete with fly-away hair and square jaw and smoky-shaded skin and the tendency to mother everything that looked lost, including -- apparently -- pasty-white freshmen from backwoods Vermont. Merlin met her father on two different occasions, and had to smile and nod his way through the pidgin both times, because it only translated into English in his head about thirty seconds too late. 

She was also the first person he met outside of class -- on accident, really, Merlin's first weekend out on his own, and of course he was the only person in Waikiki who wore _shoes_ and _socks_ and felt vaguely moronic as he weaved in and out of barefoot tourists in sunhats and clouds of sunscreen.

And anyway, Hilton Hawaiian Village took up, like, _half the beach_ or something, because once he got off their property, there, suddenly right in front of him, was one of those little faux-beach shack things that rented out surfboards and paddleboats and did discount surfing lessons, and a familiar face.

"Gwen!" he called out, before having a mild panic attack because really, what native girl who looked that good in a bikini wanted to admit she knew a geeky white guy who wore _tennis shoes_ to the beach? "It's me, Merlin," he offered, because what the hell, he can't make it worse. "... from GEOG101?" Except when he could.

But Gwen just smiled, sweet and wide, and exclaimed, "Of course I know who you are, Merlin!" She came around the counter, tugging him into a hug before he could stop her, because compared to Hawaiians, all mainlanders have emotional constipation and a personal bubble the size of Tennessee. "What brings you down here?"

 

 

And that was how Merlin wound up pretty much spilling his life's story and then some -- abridged, it was, grew up with a single-parent mom on the East Coast, came to the University of Hawaii because his mom knew Gaius, who was head of the Geology department here. Merlin had met with Gaius that first day: he was nice, in a quirky, anachronistic kind of way and could do this freaky thing with his eyebrows, and wore a t-shirt to work that said, "falling (in love with) rocks," which, he was to find out, was really tame compared to how some of the other geologists felt.

"Of course," Gwen pointed out, waving at a deeply-tanned boy as he came back to the shack with a surfboard tucked under one arm. A coworker, Merlin realized, as he disappeared into the back with a key and came out to man the counter. "There's no better place to study it, if you're interested. Hawaii is a geologist's candy store."

"It's my major," Merlin nodded. "I get that it's probably suicidal in today's world, because what exactly am I going to do with a geology major, but." He shrugged. "I have a knack for it, I guess."

"Don't worry about it." Gwen flashed him the shaka sign, thumb and pink extended, a kind of all-purpose gesture. "You been to the islands before?"

"Nope. I don't know where to start."

"Did you see the penguins in Hilton Hawaiian?"

He stared. "There are penguins? In Hawaii?"

"Yeah!" She leapt to her feet. "Come on, I'll show you. You can live here your whole life and not see everything there is to see on O'ahu, Merlin, which is ironic, considering you can drive around the entire island in about two hours, but we can start small."

He cast a look over his shoulder at the shack. "But what about ..." he indicated the boy at the counter with a jerk of his head.

"Who, Lance?" Gwen flashed him a bright smile. "Dad and I just keep him around because he's got abs that make anyone with two X chromosomes in a five mile radius come flocking. He knows how to handle himself. I'd rather hang out with you."

Merlin decided right then and there that Gwen was his best friend, hands down.

 

 

Halloween, it'd been somebody's brilliant idea (read: Arthur nagged and persuaded and _cajoled_ until the three of them agreed to it or else go to jail for _smashing his head against something painfully solid)_ that the four of them go to Waikiki together.

"What's so special about Waikiki on Halloween?" Merlin wanted to know, after having refused any and all participation in this plan thusfar simply because it was Arthur and not because he had any actual objection to running around on the beach in costume.

Arthur, Morgana, and Gwen exchanged looks, and smiled at once: wicked, knowing, and altogether the kind of smile that had Merlin going, "oh, shit."

Which is how he found himself, come October 31st, in a star-spangled robe and matching hat ("I put on my robe and wizard hat!" -- Arthur, of course, because he _would,_ and Merlin bit back the urge to retort something about Robot Social Republics because that would mean admitting he _got the joke)_ squeezing himself through the crowds on Kalakaua Avenue and thinking that now would be a very bad time to develop claustrophobia, because literally everyone and their cousin's mother's brother was there tonight, in costume and generally taking the opportunity to be as publicly lewd as possible.

Before he knew it, really, he was calling Will, forgetting about the time zones, waking him up and being unsympathetic about it, going, _dude, dude, you have to go look up the Duke cam. Whatever, Google it or something, I don't know the address, but it has live feed of the statue of the dude with a surfboard and yeah -- yeah that's me, in the wizard hat, shut up, not my idea. And -- get this get this. Okay, this -- you'll see me pointing in a bit, there's a lag -- this is Arthur._

The king waved, jaunty.

_And Gwen --_

The queen curtseyed, because Gwen spent time in the theater department and had training like that.

_And Morgana._

The witch smiled the kind of smile that had even the bravest men girding their loins without conscious thought, and Will made some kind of noise that said the sentiment came across loud and clear even through badly-pixellated webcam.

_I am NOT EVEN shitting you, dude, those are their real names._

"Coming from the guy named _Merlin,"_ Morgana pointed out.

"Snap. And whose brilliant idea was all of this, anyway?" Arthur lifted his hands like, _what._

"Gwen," said Merlin and Morgana stoutly, because if it weren't for Gwen's connections with costuming and her big-hearted ability to get practically anything out of anyone, they'd have no costumes at all.

It was at that point that Will informed Merlin that he'd taken a screencap of the video. It was in his e-mail when he got back to his dorm at, like, four in the morning, subject lined, CAMELOT AND THE COURT OF QUEEN ARTHUR (only you Merlin only you.)

Merlin saved the picture.

 

 

And after that -- Merlin wasn't sure how it happened -- they were, like, friends.

Or something.

 

 

The state of Hawaii was actually a chain of eight major islands, formed smack-dab in the middle of nowhere over a volcanic hotspot -- the closest landmass was Tahiti, and even that was thousands of miles away. It was the closest thing you could get to living in a foreign country while still having a United States zip code.

The oldest island was Kauai, and went down the line from there -- Ni'ihau (home to the only remaining native Hawaiian speakers,) O'ahu (where Merlin lived), Molokai (where there used to be a leper colony), Lanai (which, if Arthur was to be believed, had nothing but pineapples and chickens), Kahoolawe (where nobody lived because the United States had blown it up with nuclear testing during WWII), Maui (the second most populated island, and arguably the most beautiful) and the biggest and youngest of the islands, creatively called Big Island.

Ni'ihau and Kauai were a sizable distance away from the rest of the islands, and if you followed the path of mountain peaks as they formed with the movement of the tectonic plate, it went crooked right before O'ahu. When the Indian plate collided with the European one and made the Nepalese mountain range millenia and millenia ago, it was a violent enough attack that it shook the world over and changed the direction of all moving tectonic plates.

They were still moving, though, in the eternally slow way that the earth did, and a ninth island was forming just south of the Big Island. It was expected to surface in the next 10,000 years or so.

"Merlin, please," begged Gwen after fifteen minutes of this. "We were there. We learned it too."

"If he starts up again, tie him up and burn him at the stake or something," Arthur declared, and because it was Steak Night at the caf, he got up from their table to go beat up some other freshman for their entree ticket so he could get another one.

Merlin just sighed and flipped the page of their textbook.

 

 

"What about, like, hiking Diamond Head?"

"Dude, really? Diamond Head is for pussies. Like, you could climb it and get back down before I could even finish ordering a sandwich from Jimmy Johns."

Merlin shot him a look. "I don't think they have Jimmy Johns here."

Arthur waved him off emphatically -- he spent most of Christmas break in Denver, which _did_ have Jimmy Johns and was a cooler place to go if you wanted to see snow than, say, hopping over to Big Island and going to the top of Mauna Kea, like normal people. At least seven people on Merlin's floor were from there, because Denver and Honolulu were dirty kissing cousins like that.

"Whatever, dude. Pick something else."

So they went Koko Head instead, which was basically just like the staircase from freaking hell. Literally a staircase carved into the side of a headland bluff Hawaii Kai side, which was close to where Arthur lived and not far from Hanauma Bay, where tourists went snorkeling.

It was absolute torture, and Arthur and Merlin made a solemn pact never to admit it, not even to themselves, that Morgana and Gwen not only beat them to the summit, but didn't even look flustered or tired when the boys finally dragged their sorry asses up the last few steps. Never happened.

The weekend after that, they climbed Diamond Head for comparison's sake. Fewer stairs, but more Japanese tourists in heels, and the view -- oh, the view.

"Kind of like magic, huh?" Arthur elbowed Merlin in the ribs.

"You think you're so clever," Merlin snorted, but didn't actually contradict him.

 

 

So Arthur's dad, like, owned the island ("Lies. That's the Pattersons, who I'm sure are perfectly nice people, but they're Republican and for all that they're billionaires, they throw lousy Christmas parties") and Morgana had pretty much the entire cast of LOST in her contacts, so Merlin was more surprised than he should have been to find himself packed into the back of Morgana's car one three-day weekend and headed Windward side.

Windward was the rainy side: everything sharp-sloped and green and home to the Navy base and, more importantly, the dude who played John Locke. The rain shadow fell Leeward side, where people who were more in Merlin and Gwen's socioeconomic bracket grew cactuses in their front yards.

Those were the four corners of O'ahu: Windward, Leeward, Honolulu, and North Shore. (North Shore, as far as Merlin could tell, had shave ice, Pipeline, shocking amounts of open space, shrimp, and Mormons in grass skirts. In that order.)

"I never actually had an excuse to go out that far before," Merlin confessed to Morgana while they were stuck in traffic on Nimitz.

"What would you have done with this weekend instead, if I weren't awesome?" she asked, catching his eye in the rearview mirror.

He shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe checked out Pearl Harbor. I haven't done that yet."

"Dude --" Arthur, of course, who'd shouted front seat, no joust, almost the instant Morgana pulled up outside of the dorms, because maturing beyond the mental age of twelve had obviously been too much for him. "Only, like, old white people do that for _fun."_

"Are we there yet?" Merlin demanded, and the girls just laughed.

 

 

Or that other time, when they were at Makapu'u. Because not only did Arthur look like the perfect poster boy for the surfer dude stereotype, he had to actually _surf,_ too, which had served as the subject of the first conversation he had with Gwen, as well as the second, third, and fourth, before they finally had to conclude that it was utterly ridiculous they hadn't found each other before now.

And Merlin, who still went to the beach fully clothed -- although he did take his shoes and socks off, because he wasn't an utter tool -- sat with his back to a rock and tried to work on the lab follow-up he had due, like, tomorrow, except Makapu'u was freaking _windy,_ and sand kept on blowing onto his workbook. Morgana was sprawled out on the towel next to him, reading a paperback, which for some reason didn't look like it was three seconds away from being whisked out of her hands, which was how Merlin felt. Gwen laid out on her stomach on Morgana's other side, back turned up to the sun like a satisfied cat.

Technically, they were here because they were supposed to be watching Arthur do awesome things on his board, but Merlin lost track of what little bobbing dot was what surfer after about three minutes.

So it came as a surprise when -- 

"Did you _see_ that?" Arthur crowed, dashing up the beach to them, board under one arm and the catch line dangling from it. He had the audacity to then _drip on Merlin's homework._ "Dude. DUDE. Oh my GOD. Like, people live their entire _lives_ without catching a wave like that. It was absolutely BRUTAL."

"Arthur," said Morgana mildly. "Brutal as it might have been, it also stripped you of your pants. Please go back and find them."

"... Oh."

Later, Morgana admitted mournfully that they should have gone Sandies instead. Sure, it was more crowded, but that also meant more people would have gotten a picture of Arthur, sans swim trunks, and she would have had an easier time of Googling it for blackmail purposes.

 

 

Arthur: "Wanna grab something to eat?"

Morgana: "Like what? The caf's closed."

Arthur: "I feel like Thai food. Or Vietnamese. Something, _whatever,_ Asian cuisine of some sort."

Gwen: "There's that place in the shopping center on the corner of McCully and Kapiolani. With all the seafood?"

Arthur: "Phucket Thai!"

Merlin: "Oh my God, _grow up."_

Arthur and Morgana: "PHUCKET THAI."

Gwen: "Actually, I was thinking Fook Yuen. Aren't they right next to each other?"

Merlin: "ARGH."

 

 

From the rooftop of Merlin's dorm, you could see miles in any direction -- downtown Honolulu, a dozen skyscrapers glittering in the sun, the curve of Waikiki meeting the mote of Diamond Head crater, and beyond it, the sea, endless. Manoa Valley in the other direction, where houses cling to the hillside in a valiant attempt to get a better view than the neighbor.

Merlin did laundry and the other three lounged in the lounge, because life in college was exciting like that. He wasn't even quite sure why they were here, because they all had their own homes they could go to, but instead they were here, with him, and it wasn't like he was going to _complain_ about it or anything.

Well, not much, anyway.

"Dude!" Arthur pulled something out from underneath the cushions of the sofa he'd been lazing on. A sword -- they all blinked at it, like that was going to make it make sense.

A sword. A real, honest to goodness sword. Like, the kind that definitely violated all kinds of dorm anti-weapon policies.

"Dude!" said Arthur again, even more emphatically. "No way. No freaking way!" He gaped at the hilt, and then looked up at them, eyes glitteringly huge. "This has to be, like, _destiny_ or some shit. You will _never_ guess what this sword is named."

He paused for dramatic effect: a trick he'd picked up from Gwen. (Merlin had asked him, once, if he was considering a theater major. "Oh, hell no," had been the reply. "What's your major, then?" "Information and Computer Sciences." "Of course it is.")

" _Excalibur."_

".... Congratulations," Merlin remarked dryly, after a moment in which they all managed to look varying states of unimpressed. "You've pulled the sword out of the sofa. What are you going to do with it, O Once and Future King? Start a citizen's revolution and reinstate the lost monarchy of Hawaii? People are going to laugh at you."

"At Arthur, maybe," said Morgana. "Gwen could probably pull it off. Sorry, Arthur, she'd make a stronger queen than you."

And the thing was, she actually sounded _serious._ It was hard to tell with Morgana, sometimes; she was eerie like that.

 

 

December came, bringing with it final exams, palm trees strung with Christmas lights, and the looming prospect of three weeks at the end of the semester where they'd all go off and do things, like, apart.

Back home, facing a nasty storm, Merlin's mother paid Will to come by and shovel snow off her driveway, and Merlin felt guilty about it for, like, a minute and a half as he sat on the sea wall, bare feet dangling over the surf below. The breeze coming off the waves cut through his tank, but it wasn't strong enough to even give him goosebumps, really. The girls sat to his left, plumeria blossoms tucked behind their ears, and Arthur to his right, his hair ratty from sweat and sea salt.

The moment stretched, long and endless, silent except for the soft rustling of the palm trees and the whispering of the ocean.

"O ke aloha ka 'iu, ka Hawai'i," murmured Gwen.

Merlin glanced at her profile, etched in reds and bathed in gold. "What does that mean?"

She laughed. "I haven't the faintest clue."

"Love is paradise, love is Hawaii," said Arthur quietly, possessively.

Merlin faced front again, smiling as the sun set all around them, an explosion of colors and beauty so breathtaking it had to be magic.

 

 

-  
fin


End file.
